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Fun With Poetry.
Feb. 5th, 2008 08:38 pmElayna's poetry homework involves interviewing an adult and asking them what their favorite poem is.
I vacillated a lot, and almost went with Wendy Cope's "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis*." I ended up listing "The Lady's Dressing Room**," by Swift, instead.
I'm not sure which answer is likely to get her or me in more trouble, but it's sincere. Which isn't to take anything away from Lowell, Gluck, Jong, Plath, Dickinson, and that Shakespeare guy, of course (all of whom I'd rank above Swift and Cope in general). I just hate any attempt to make someone list one favorite anything. I don't have one favorite poem, book, album, TV show, movie, or one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.
Fortunately, her grandmother went with the more palatable "How do I love Thee?" And since Elayna only has to print and respond to one of the poems she gets as an answer, that's the one she's using. The fact that it's shorter than the Swift poem has nothing to do with it, I'm sure.
*It was a dream I had last week
And some kind of record seemed vital.
I knew it wouldn't be much of a poem
But I love the title.
**Which I've always thought was obviously a critique of the superficiality, hypocrisy, and ignorance of the male suitor, with a secondary swipe at the ludicrous hoops through which so many women jump for "beauty," but if you read it as misogyny, I can't stop you.
I vacillated a lot, and almost went with Wendy Cope's "Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis*." I ended up listing "The Lady's Dressing Room**," by Swift, instead.
I'm not sure which answer is likely to get her or me in more trouble, but it's sincere. Which isn't to take anything away from Lowell, Gluck, Jong, Plath, Dickinson, and that Shakespeare guy, of course (all of whom I'd rank above Swift and Cope in general). I just hate any attempt to make someone list one favorite anything. I don't have one favorite poem, book, album, TV show, movie, or one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.
Fortunately, her grandmother went with the more palatable "How do I love Thee?" And since Elayna only has to print and respond to one of the poems she gets as an answer, that's the one she's using. The fact that it's shorter than the Swift poem has nothing to do with it, I'm sure.
*It was a dream I had last week
And some kind of record seemed vital.
I knew it wouldn't be much of a poem
But I love the title.
**Which I've always thought was obviously a critique of the superficiality, hypocrisy, and ignorance of the male suitor, with a secondary swipe at the ludicrous hoops through which so many women jump for "beauty," but if you read it as misogyny, I can't stop you.